With a large toon contingent down for the Palace match, today has been something I’ve been excited about for some time. Once we’d decided which pub to meet in, which took quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and elicited a fair few frowns from those who didn’t live near it, the day was off to a good start. The team was released, an hour before the match, and put us all in decent spirits. The lack of new loan signing Slimani wasn’t surprising given he’s injured, though several news outlets had asserted he’d be on the squad for Sunday – I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t secretly hoping for his debut. A decent side was put forward and we were feeling optimistic.

It may only be my second away match but the beauty of Newcastle fans is that they make you feel at home anywhere. The atmosphere was great as our side put up an admirable fight in the first twenty minutes, pressing Palace and showing us a side which, to be honest, I’d have loved to have seen a bit earlier. Possession was largely ours and the fans were louder than i’ve heard in a while. A Diame touch at twenty two minutes to put the mags ahead, followed by many a rendition of our Mo Diame song.

The mood at this point was total elation. It looked as though we were outplaying Palace – only just, to be clear – but outplaying them all the same. Some of those around me couldn’t believe it; was this the change in our fortunes we’ve all been crossing our fingers for? It certainly looked like it could be. Jonjo Shelvey was playing a belter, moving the ball up the field at a much faster pace than we’ve seen from him recently, and with much more focus.

Towards the end of the first half Palace picked up their pace a bit. A shot around the 43 minute mark went wide, but was much too close for comfort. Newcastle alum (Ed: he used to play for us) Yohan Cabaye attempted another shot right before the whistle, going down after being tackled, but no free kick was awarded and the shot was sent away by Darlow. It was close, but we ended the half ahead, so the mood in the Arthur Wait stand was jubilant.

Going into the second half there was some traditional ‘get out of our club’ chanting from the Newcastle fans but generally the fans were there for the squad that were winning, keen to see if we could double our lead over the home team. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be – a penalty was awarded ten minutes into the second half to Palace for a shirt tug from Clark. It goes in – just about – past Darlow and it’s enough to bring the home side right back into the game. I’m not sure what their half time chat was, but whatever Roy Hodgson said got right under Palace’s skin and they came out guns blazing. It was honestly like a different side had shown up to play.

Quite soon after the equaliser Atsu is brought on for Kenedy, who had a decent match . It’s not too clear to the fans why this happened, but in Rafa we trust – there’s been no report of injury so it could just be keeping him as fit as possible for his first couple of matches. By about sixty minutes in, our side is doing their best to keep up with a totally energised Palace side. They have far, far more possession than us and we’re doing well to keep it at 1-1 at this point. For their part, the away fans didn’t lose any of their momentum. The singing and cheering went on as before, and the atmosphere was certainly not downbeat.

The last twenty minutes were played keeping Palace away from a winning goal. Perez being brought off for Merino did very little for the side, which was a shame as there was definitely hope around where I was standing that Merino would inject a bit more energy into the final ten minutes. A slight push before the whistle showed we hadn’t completely given up on the three points, but it wasn’t to be – the final whistle went in an anticlimactic end to the game.

Two points from two games where we need to be collecting more isn’t the end of the world but it’s certainly not where we’d want to be at this point in the season, especially not with yesterday’s results going against us. For what it’s worth, I’d say Diame was my Man of the Match for nipping our first goal in there and giving the crowd what they needed. On to Man United; here’s hoping Slimani is fit enough to throw a bit more energy into our team and bring the mags up to where they belong.

true faith’s matchday Newsletter from this game is still available for download. You can get access to it by clicking here.

true faithis Newcastle United’s longest running and most widely read fanzine. It is one of the most prominent and respected fanzine titles in the UK. It is definitely one of the hardest working. This is issue 136 of the fanzine. It is FREE to download now and you can read it offline and on any device you like. For best results we recommend a tablet or i-pad. true faith is written by supporters for supporters. It is for people who like to read about Newcastle United and football in general. We do something a bit different. This is avowedly a partisan Geordie publication but also internationalist. You won’t get pop-ups, click-bait, recycled second hand cut and paste news and we won’t lazily reheat nonsense about SKY pundits. We’ll leave that to others. We respect you all too much to go down that road. This is good, solid, old fashioned fanzine writing for the modern supporter in a digital, modern format. Our reading figures for the fanzine are truly astonishing. Each issue, our readership grows and so our audience gets ever bigger. We must be doing something right.

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Annoying that we have taken the lead in the last two games but haven’t been able to keep the opposition out, but positive that we haven’t lost.

An absolutely needless foul by Clark for the penalty and I hope that Rafa reads him the riot act for it. Defenders should be punished for shirt-pulling in the penalty area as it’s the only way to rid the game of it. If refs handed out more penalties then players would get the message quick-smart.

Bring on Man Utd at SJP and looking forward to getting something from the game.

Good report, a lot of positivity. Makes a change eh? Good to see diame get a goal, and dummet/ lascelles as committed as ever. At a loss as to why we’ve brought the keeper in because both keepers have been good in difficult circumstances. Looking forward to Man U.

Never a penalty. Benteke was pulling and pushing as much as Clark. Mariner the referee yet again we get nowt from that bloke. Would he have given a pen if Diame had not have scored after Lascelles was pulled back?

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